WHATS THE BEST LIFT KIT FOR A DEFENDER 90

Looking at lifting a defender 90 - what is the best kit and how high can I achieve without having major issues?

forklift or HIAB

How high do you want to lift it? What do you hope to achieve by lifting?

No more than 2 inch lift is generally recommended for a vehicle that's used on the road - start to wear out prop's and UJ's quicker if you go over that. In any case, make sure they are regularly greased.

I have just reversed mine from being lifted and have 2 inch lifted springs for sale.

Only a year old let me know if you want them.

Bigger tyres.[Taller]

A massive one, just to make the handling properly horrendous!

Britpart do kits as do bearmach and a few other well known brands, all the budgety ones are about equal in my opinion.

Have a search, scorpion racing used to have a good name but not sure if they are still going now.

I really wouldn't bother though. From experience te handling becomes vague, and you don't really gain anything off-road, unless you're wading alot.

Foe better performance off road update the diffs rather than the suspension, you will always be compromising something with a lift of any sort

Whilst I agree with the sentence about fitting diff lockers in @Gottschalk s post I disagree with some .. A suspension lift allows larger tyres to be fitted, which really does help offroad, but as he also said, a cheap lift is not usually a great idea .. I know, I've done it ... A lift only works well when you also make other mods or additions to suit most of which can't be easily seen, such as better and longer brake lines.

There is a compromise to be made, but done properly a lift does not make the handling horrendous on road, just more suited to off road, the opposite to lowering springs and widening tyres, which will make it work better on roads, but not as good off. OK, my 90 body rolls a lot more on corners, but the tyres generate a lot of grip, it does wander on motorway tramlines, but so does the missus' standard X-Trail. Barely any difference in town, country roads or just round and about, it's just a softer sprung vehicle with more overall suspension travel. It mostly stops people parking too close to you in shopping centre car parks ... The only time it feels properly compromised is at high speeds (say above 60-65) in the wet ... But again, it never felt good in that situation anyway!

@Paul D I agree with everything you said to be fair, I was more referring to a cheap lift kit that just involved taller shocks ad springs...i.e some lift kits are just about increasing the lb rating on a taller spring, which obviously isn't as pliable as a decent original or a good quality lift with softer, flexy springs. That's when the handling becomes horrendous, and why I ditched mine in return for a fairly standarish set up (longer shocks and spring re-locaters).

I'm sure a decent lift kit that includes castor corrected rad arms and bushes and adjustable panhard are fine on road, but I have no experience of these personally, and I do know they can cost a fair bit of dosh to do right!

I didn't mean to come off so negatively before, sorry about that!

No need to be sorry, different views just reflect different experiences .. Just shows the choices we have as Landy owners and that not all is as it appears ...

Paul D said:

Whilst I agree with the sentence about fitting diff lockers in @Gottschalk s post I disagree with some .. A suspension lift allows larger tyres to be fitted, which really does help offroad, but as he also said, a cheap lift is not usually a great idea .. I know, I've done it ... A lift only works well when you also make other mods or additions to suit most of which can't be easily seen, such as better and longer brake lines.

There is a compromise to be made, but done properly a lift does not make the handling horrendous on road, just more suited to off road, the opposite to lowering springs and widening tyres, which will make it work better on roads, but not as good off. OK, my 90 body rolls a lot more on corners, but the tyres generate a lot of grip, it does wander on motorway tramlines, but so does the missus' standard X-Trail. Barely any difference in town, country roads or just round and about, it's just a softer sprung vehicle with more overall suspension travel. It mostly stops people parking too close to you in shopping centre car parks ... The only time it feels properly compromised is at high speeds (say above 60-65) in the wet ... But again, it never felt good in that situation anyway!

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I agree. But would say the key words to that are the ones in red. Seen some pretty horrendous efforts over the years!

For my Ninety, 60-65 is a rare experience to be savoured when it happens, not too worried about the handling!